


something inside me

by politicalmamaduck



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Gen, Loneliness, Original Character Death(s), Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Trauma
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-27
Updated: 2019-01-26
Packaged: 2019-10-17 09:35:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 912
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17557877
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/politicalmamaduck/pseuds/politicalmamaduck
Summary: A compilation of gen ficlets exploring Rey's loneliness and trauma, originally posted on Tumblr.





	1. Chapter 1

It wasn’t until later that it hit her.

Later, when she could finally be alone, freed from the _Falcon’_ s confines and lack of privacy, crowded into the already precious space with the entirety of what remained of the once mighty Resistance.

_They were nobody.  
_

_They were filthy junk traders. Sold you off for drinking money. They’re dead in a pauper’s grave in the Jakku desert. You come from nothing. You’re nothing. But not to me.  
_

When she was finally free from the burden of being the last Jedi, the Resistance’s savior, she put a hand to her mouth to stop from crying out, but like the ever shifting Jakku sands, it did nothing to stop her tears flowing, pouring out of her in a fury she could not control.

Had she truly been lying to herself for all these years? Had she known the truth all along, and just refused to admit it until the dark cave and Kylo Ren forced her to stand on her own two feet, look upon herself, and find that she herself was all she had, all she ever had?

Rey could find no answers in her own sobbing, in her chest heaving, in her heart breaking into a million pieces she could not fix like a hyperdrive or a droid.

So she cried into a meager blanket and pillow, shaking from exhaustion and rage and pain and wanting to howl at the galaxy, at the Force, for treating her so cruelly, for stripping her of everything and leaving her bare in the desert, her heart and soul so full and yet so empty, devoid of the love she’d always craved.

Her parents abandoned her, and so had Kylo.

How long would it be before everyone she just helped save abandoned her too?

Rey fell asleep, two broken lightsaber halves under her pillow, her hand outstretched for someone who could not grasp it in return.


	2. Death and the Scavenger

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> TW for an original character death.

Rey was ten years of age the first time she heard tell of a death while scavenging.

Death due to dehydration, or exposure to the elements, or starvation was all too common on Jakku, but scavengers falling to their deaths on the interior of a wrecked Star Destroyer was a new experience.

She hears whispers at Niima Outpost; the other scavengers were avoiding the particular Star Destroyer where Mina had fallen.

Mina had not been Rey’s friend, but no one had ever been Rey’s friend. The other scavengers were colleagues in the sense that they all worked for Plutt, at his mercy, but otherwise there was no mercy to be found within the harsh environs and galactic relics of Jakku.

Rey did know that Mina had been a hard worker, and that she deserved better than an ignominious death, alone and afraid.

After trading in her day’s haul for a meager portion, Rey headed alone across the sands to the Starship Graveyard.

She carried her staff with her–a smaller staff, at that time, to fit her smaller size–and plenty of ropes. She wore a makeshift blanket that she used as a cloak, scavenged from another Star Destroyer’s medbay.

It was pitch black outside when Rey arrived at the Star Destroyer in which Mina fell. She had a small glowlamp with her, and she secured it at her waist as best she could. That glowlamp had saved her from more than one troublesome spot while scavenging.

It was impossible to mark the passage of time while in the dark in the cavernous interior of the Star Destroyer, but Rey knew it took her the better part of the night to find Mina’s body. She had fallen from a great height, and landed badly, impaled on a piece of durasteel that seemingly had once been supporting another level of the ship that had long been destroyed.

Mina was a grown woman, double Rey’s size, and it was difficult to pull her off of the durasteel spoke.

Rey didn’t need her glowlamp’s feeble light to know she was covered in her fellow scavenger’s blood by the time she got her off the spoke.

Rey emerged from the Star Destroyer, dragging Mina behind her, to find that it was the darkest part of the night before the dawn.

She did not know how long the shifting sands would remain Mina’s resting place and hide her body, but she tried to dig deep enough and cover her thoroughly so that at least in her final resting place she would not be disturbed.

Rey had no flowers to offer Mina, nothing to properly mark her grave.

She let a handful of sand pass through her fingers atop what she thought would be Mina’s head.

“We belong to the sand, and to the sand we shall return,” she murmured.

Rey hadn’t enough water to both drink and wash when she finally trudged home to her AT-AT, but if she worshipped R’iia, she would have thanked her for what she did have. She had her home, her life, and enough water to make it to tomorrow, even if she were to return to the sand the next day, or the next.

She told herself she wouldn’t die on Jakku. Her family would come for her long before she reached Mina’s age. She slept that night with tears crusted at the corners of her eyes and blood crusted on her hands, dreaming of the cavernous depths of a Star Destroyer and a woman crying out in the night.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you very much for reading these unbetaed ficlets! Please do leave a comment and come talk to me on Tumblr, Dreamwidth, or Twitter.


End file.
